#271 My Bloodwork Results Analysis on Inside Tracker - Fear Michelle Darian, MS

Michelle Darian (0:00)

We know that DNA is a destiny, and that's kind of the point of also being able to combine it with your blood work to show how your specific habits are manifesting in your day-to-day life.

Siim Land (0:09)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast. I'm your host, Siim Land, and our guest today is Michelle Darian. Michelle is a nutrition scientist and a registered dietitian in Inside Tracker. In this episode, Michelle and I are going to take a look at my recent blood work on the Inside Tracker platform. Inside Tracker is an at-home biomarker service that you can use to test up to 43 different biomarkers like lipids, liver enzymes, inflammation, sex hormones, and much more.

The process is simple. You order the test kit to your home, use the little fingerprint device to give your blood, send it back, and you get results to your online dashboard or app. You can get a 25% discount of all their tests if you head over to siimland.com forward slash inside tracker, that's in one word, and you can use the code siimland at checkout. That's siimland.com forward slash inside tracker, and the code is siimland.

Michelle, welcome to the show.

Michelle Darian (1:01)

Great, thanks for having me.

Siim Land (1:02)

Yeah, I'm glad to have you, and today we're going to talk about blood work, my own blood tests, and you work for Inside Tracker, which is the company that I ran the analysis through, and before we get to my results, maybe let's talk a little about, you know, how did you get, you know, how did you start to work with Inside Tracker, and how did you get, you know, your expertise?

Michelle Darian (1:23)

Yeah, definitely. So since I was in college, I did my undergraduate in dietetics, and I got really interested in nutrition and how people can implement these different nutrition and lifestyle changes to really impact their overall health. So that led me to Boston when I did my Masters in Nutrition and then Public Health at Tufts University.

And then a couple of the advisors on the board at Inside Tracker are also professors at Tufts. And so that's how I got familiar with Inside Tracker and actually came on as an intern while I was in graduate school. And I really enjoyed my time at Inside Tracker. And so I ended up coming on full time after I was done with my grad school and then doing my dietetic internship so that I could be a registered dietitian.

And so I do a couple of different things for Inside Tracker. So I'm on their science team and then also on their marketing team. So basically being able to translate some of that scientific content into practical use.

Siim Land (2:16)

That's definitely good to have professionals on the team to know, you know, what's the actual science say and how does it all this different, what does it mean, the results. But did you ever have like any of your own health issues in the past or what was specifically maybe sparked your interest or desire to learn these things?

Michelle Darian (2:35)

Yeah, that's a good question. So I've always had high cholesterol that runs in my family. And so I was pretty surprised in high school to learn that I also had high cholesterol. Well, I guess unsurprising based on my genetics, but just based on my lifestyle, I was pretty surprised.

And so then I actually became a vegetarian and I just noticed how well I was sleeping, just like how well I felt in general. And so, I mean, I know everyone's diet is super specific to them and certain things work best for others. But I thought it was just super interesting that something kind of like a small tweak was able to make me feel so great and helped to start to lower my numbers and things like that. So that's basically how I got started actually in high school. And I have just been really interested in it ever since.

Siim Land (3:16)

Okay, that's good to hear. Like, yeah, the genetics have a huge impact. And did you like, did you like, I don't know, find anything else about genetics that you didn't know about before? Or, you know, the inside tracker also has a genetics component to it that people can use.

So, yeah, like it would be interesting, you know, like a few additional insights of like what people could learn about how their genetics could affect like their, or what kind of recommendations they should follow.

Michelle Darian (3:44)

Yeah, definitely. And genetics do play a role in some of these biomarker levels and specifically the cholesterol. And so basically what genetics can tell you is that it's your genetic predisposition to what your biomarker levels can be. So inside tracker's DNA kit tests for like 29 different wellness traits and cholesterol being one of them. And so I also found through the inside tracker test that I do also have a genetic predisposition for higher cholesterol levels. Basically, what that does is in combination with your blood work, it can help you to figure out what you need to prioritize working on.